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Broken Bow
In the Temporal Cold War '' |image= |series= |production=40358-721 (001-002) |producer(s)= |story= |script=Rick Berman and Brannon Braga |director=James L. Conway |imdbref=tt0286610 |guests=John Fleck as Silik, Melinda Clarke as Sarin, Tommy Lister, Jr. as Klaang, Vaughn Armstrong as Admiral Forrest, Jim Beaver as Admiral Daniel Leonard, Mark Moses as Henry Archer, Gary Graham as Ambassador Soval, Thomas Kopache as Vulcan Attache Tos, Jim Fitzpatrick as Commander Williams, James Horan as Humanoid Figure, Joseph Ruskin as Suliban Doctor, Marty Davis as Young Jonathan Archer, Ron King as Farmer, Ricky Luna as Carlos, Chelsea Bond as Alien Mother, Ethan Dampf as Alien Child, Diane Klimaszewski and Elaine Klimaszewski as Dancers, James Cromwell as Doctor Zefram Cochrane, Byron Thames as Crewman, Peter Henry Schroeder as Klingon Chancellor and Matt Williamson as Klingon Council Member |previous_production= |next_production=Fight or Flight |episode=ENT S01E01 |airdate=25 September 2001 |previous_release=(ENT) None (Overall) Endgame |next_release=Fight or Flight |story_date(s)=April 16, 2151/2121 |previous_story= |next_story=Fight or Flight }} =Summary= In the nine decades following Zefram Cochrane's visionary warp flight in space and the First Contact that followed, the human race has been slowly guided by the Vulcans toward developing the Warp Five engine. Mankind is at last able to explore the virgin depths of space with a revolutionary new starship, the Enterprise NX-01, under the command of Captain Jonathan Archer. Plans to launch Enterprise are moved up when a Klingon courier is shot down by unknown assailants and crash-lands in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Feeling that the Vulcans have been condescending toward mankind for years, Archer insists it's the humans' responsibility to return the injured Klingon to his homeworld alive. Archer is fully backed by Starfleet Command, and the Vulcans' objections fall upon deaf ears. With the ship high above Earth in spacedock, Archer has three days to assemble his crew, consisting of the charming southern chief engineer, Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III; the strong and wary tactical officer, Lieutenant Malcolm Reed; the eager helmsman who grew up in space, Ensign Travis Mayweather; the linguistically talented communications officer, Ensign Hoshi Sato; and for his chief medical officer, Archer recruits the unconventional alien Dr. Phlox. For the ship's first mission, the Vulcans request that an advisor from their ranks be present, and they assign the highly intelligent but stubborn Sub-commander T'Pol. Anticipation and nerves run high as the ship is fitted with the latest Starfleet technology, such as the recently approved transporter, which no one is very eager to test on themselves. Quickly the historic launch arrives, and the Starship Enterprise does indeed, in the words of Dr. Cochrane, "go boldly where no man has gone before," warping towards planet Kronos. As Enterprise speeds along her way, the crew all learn more about each other and strong bonds begin to form. Under Dr. Phlox's care, the injured Klingon, Klaang, regains consciousness and Hoshi tries to communicate with him. Suddenly the ship experiences a power failure and unknown chameleon-like aliens invade and kidnap Klaang from Sickbay. Dr. Phlox examines a captured alien and discovers he's a Suliban who has been genetically altered. With the Klingon gone, T'Pol advises Archer to return the ship to Earth, but he adamantly refuses. He then learns from the tight-lipped Vulcan that Klaang's last stop before crashing on Earth was a planet called Rigel X, so Archer orders Mayweather to set a course for the Rigel system. Meanwhile, a Suliban named Silik interrogates Klaang, trying to find out why he was on Rigel X meeting with a Suliban female named Sarin. At Rigel X, the Enterprise away team discovers an amazing multitude of alien life at a trading complex there, and their attempts to locate information on Klaang's visit are constantly interrupted by strange new sights and sounds. Archer eventually meets Sarin, who tells him of a Temporal Cold War in which the Suliban are being used to incite internal strife within the Klingon Empire. Klaang was bringing proof of this back to his High Council in order to avoid the Empire being thrown into chaos. Hidden Suliban soldiers suddenly attack, forcing Archer, Sarin and the rest of the away team to fight their way back to Enterprise. During the extremely intense firefight Sarin is killed, and later Archer is rendered unconscious from a deep blast to his leg while saving T'Pol's life. As Archer recovers, T'Pol takes command of Enterprise despite Trip's objections, and astonishes everyone by enabling the ship to track the Suliban vessel from Rigel X, rather than ordering the ship back to Earth. After Archer resumes command they arrive at a gas giant planet, apparently losing the Suliban's trail. But T'Pol is again surprisingly helpful when she works with Archer to determine that not one but 14 Suliban vessels have recently entered the planet's atmosphere. Enterprise goes in to follow, and discovers a huge Suliban mothership, or "Helix" with 3000 lifesigns on board. They are attacked by several individual Suliban cell ships, but manage to capture one with the ship's grappler. Archer and Tucker learn to fly the stolen craft and use it to infiltrate the Helix while Enterprise hides in a dense upper layer of the atmosphere and avoids the Suliban's depth charges. Archer and Tucker find Klaang and release him while fending off the Suliban with their new phase-pistols. While Tucker takes the Klingon back to Enterprise, Archer stays behind to set off a magnetic disruptor that dismantles the Helix. Trying to stay alive while waiting for pick-up, Archer discovers a Temporal Chamber used by the Suliban to obtain their orders from a mysterious shrouded figure from the future. Archer is found by the Suliban leader, Silik, and the two struggle against each other in a time-shifted environment. Realizing he's no match for the genetically mutated Suliban, Archer tries to gain some distance by exiting the chamber, where time returns to normal. As Archer runs, Silik fires his weapon dead center into Archer, but at that moment the captain dematerializes, being unwittingly beamed back to Enterprise by a nervous Tucker using the relatively untried bio-transporter. Leaving the Suliban behind, Enterprise warps away and successfully delivers Klaang to his homeworld. The Klingon Chancellor draws blood from Klaang, and his scientists find hidden within his DNA the Suliban data proving their conspiracy to undermine the Empire. The Chancellor turns to Archer and acts hostile toward him, but Archer takes his actions as a "thank you." Back aboard Enterprise, Archer receives orders from Starfleet that henceforth, he and his crew are to officially begin their mission of exploration. Gratefully acknowledging her assistance in the mission's success, Archer sets aside his pride and convinces T'Pol to remain on the ship as Science Officer. A course is laid in for the nearest inhabited planet, and the crew of Enterprise boldly warps toward the unknown. =Errors and Explanations= Internet Movie Database Continuity # In ST:DS9, it's made clear that entering warp within a star system can lead to disastrous consequences, and it therefore takes 3 hours to travel between the station and Bajor by shuttlecraft. In the DS9 episode By Inferno's Light and in ST: The Motion Picture, warp was engaged within a star system (Bajor's and Earth's, respectively) at great risk. Yet in this episode they go to warp without any concern, starting at warp 4 and up to 4.5 as soon as they "clear Jupiter." They could be entering warp away from the orbital plain of the planets. Ex Astis Scientia Nitpicking # The most blatant error is that the Enterprise, at Warp 4.5, can reach Qo'noS in four days. This would mean that Qo'noS is only one light year away – impossible.Perhaps there was a warp superhighway between Earth and Qo'nos, which would enable them to complete the journey in the time. # A definite violation of continuity is the intensive contact that Starfleet and Archer have with the Klingons, and I'm not talking about ridged or ridgeless foreheads here. We know that in the times of TOS humans did know next to nothing about the Klingons and that in The Undiscovered Country their customs as well as even their anatomy were still a mystery to Starfleet. Even at the time of TNG many aspects of their culture were not yet known. Enterprise, however, shows how the Klingon Klaang gets intensive care at Starfleet Medical and that Archer's crew visits the Klingon Homeworld. Did Starfleet delete all records of that? Moreover, in TNG: First Contact (the episode, not the movie!), Picard says that first contact with the Klingons was disastrous and led to a long conflict. I can see nothing like that in "Broken Bow". Even if the High Council was not friendly to the strangers, they must have been very glad that Klaang and the proof were saved by the humans. I couldn't imagine a better first contact – especially with the Klingons! The records could have become corrupted somehow. # Even though the episode showed much more of it than the images released so far, the bridge design is as unoriginal as expected. While the detail work, including the switches and monitors, is fine, the overall layout is like on every Federation starship 200 years later. It seems they have just recycled the Defiant command chair, the floor from the Enterprise-B, Tom's helm station and the overhead sensor thing from Voyager, and only changed the details. Essentially the same applies to sickbay. The NX class designers obviously created layouts that could not be improved upon! # The phase pistol fires light bolts and is definitely a particle weapon, much more advanced than the lasers in The Cage, and it already has the miraculous ability to stun people. The transporter doesn't seem to be any less advanced than the one on the original Enterprise; it was not slower, only its capacity seems to be limited to one person (the controls look even much more advanced, but I'm not complaining about that). The point is that phase pistols and transporter are two technologies whose operation is completely undistinguishable from what it will still be 100 or even 200 years later. The later versions are the product of incremental improvements. # Rather small but nonetheless interesting details are the door opener buttons. Why isn't it possible to let the door open automatically, as they do already today? It may not be possible to incorporate the required sensors. # Why isn't the door button located in the door itself, so that a person doesn't have to stretch one's arm out to reach it? That would make it more difficult to operate. Nit Central # JAM on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:33 pm: A klingon running from a fight? Kinda strange, given what we know about klingons. Brian Fitzgerald on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:43 pm: I figure that since he has such important information to deliver, it would have been more dishonorable to get killed before delivering the info. He did say that he disgraced the Empire and was ready to die, after he was able to deliver the information. # Spornan on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:35 pm: Have Vulcans always been Vegetarians? Sparrow47 on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:55 pm: Yes the Vulcans have always been vegetarians... or at least Spock was. In All Our Yesterdays, part of his "reversion" was a craving for meat. # SMT on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:37 pm: Zefram Cochrane was 87 when he disappeared. (So says Classic Metamorphosis.) He few his first warp craft in 2063, and recorded that message we saw 32 years before the present year of 2151, meaning he did it in 2119. That's 56 years between the invention and his disappearance, at minimum. He was no older than 31 when we saw him in Star Trek: First Contact. Did he look 31 to you? Seemed a good two decades older to me, even taking the ravages of his alcoholism into account. Visit the Star Trek: First Contact entry for a possible explanation. # When a firefight breaks out nearby, T'Pol, Tucker, and Sato keep ducking away as shots pass close to them. Thing is, they're behind a forcefield. Why would they have to duck away, if the shots won't touch them? Of all people, the logical T'Pol, not driven by fear or panic, ought to know this. There is a certain logical in keeping out of the way of nearby gunfire, in case it manages to penetrate what ever defensive measures they are using. # Is modesty logical? I merely ask because T'Pol never removed her undergarments while smearing that biomemetic(wasn't it--egad, more technobabble) gel on herself and Tucker. Of course, it wasn't as if that Vulcan version of the sports bra ended up leaving ANYTHING to the imagination at the end. Brian Fitzgerald on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:51 pm: Logical, no. But since the Vulcans see humans an immature she may have kept covered because she felt that that the human would have a hard time concentrating on work with her after seeing her naked. # I don't know how good Klingon technology is in the 22nd century, or anyone else's, but I don't quite see how it can write all that intricate information on a DNA nucleotide, which is made up of maybe a few score atoms, never mind read it accurately. '' ltdodd on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 11:44 pm:'' The Klingons did NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! encode the the info into DNA SARIN did. She used some of the super advanced bio-genetic engineering techniques to encode the data and she secretly slipped on to Klaang without his knowledge. How do I know this??? Well because Klaang tells the interrogator that SARIN gave him nothing this was while he was under the truth serum. And look as the CHancellor slices his hand he is puzzled look on his face. HE didn't know this was in his body. I at first like you thought the Klingons had done what they did in TNG The Drumhead, but it makes more sense in this time frame that Klingons would not be able to put that kind of info into detailed sequences and it makes more sense with Suliban receiving genetic engineering tech from the future. But this brings a nit itself. How did she slip it onto him? Seniram 10:59, September 2, 2018 (UTC) Slight of Hand? # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 8:55 pm: Did I miss where Archer picked up his tricorder from? Because when he's crawing around in the Sulliban base, he seems to have this thing that's the size of a palm pilot. As we know from TOS, Spock's tricorder looked like it could kill someone if you hit them hard enough with it. Archer’s device is most likely a basic scanner, with presumably less capability/storage/battery capacity than the tricorder. # PaulG on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 9:05 pm: Is it just me or are the pursuers of the Klingon really dumb? First, the one who slides under the door is extremely vulnerable. It would make more sense just to blast the door or, better yet, blow up the barn (or whatever that is). Second, how do they fall for the back door trick? There are two of them! One could even climb to the higher door with his webcrawler skills and sandwich Klaang inbetween! TomM on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 10:13 pm: It was important to capture the "Klingot" alive, if possible, to determine what he had, and how much he knew and had passed on. so blowing up the grain silo would have been an act of last resort. ' # ''Aaron Dotter on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 9:13 pm: I thought that the title sequence was well done, a nice change from the other ones. I wonder how much permission they had to get to use all of that real footage..… ''Brian Fitzgerald on Wednesday, September 26, 2001 - 9:52 pm:'' Most of it is NASA footage so it's in the public domain.''' Category:Episodes Category:Enterprise Category:Multi part stories